


Greed

by jll



Series: Undisclosed [1]
Category: Turn (TV 2014)
Genre: M/M, is it weird to ship characters based on real people?, not a happy one
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-11
Updated: 2015-04-13
Packaged: 2018-03-22 10:33:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,633
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3725518
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jll/pseuds/jll
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It was in this brief moment that Benjamin realized how much he missed Caleb.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Benjamin

**Author's Note:**

> I have no idea why I can't add space between paragraphs. Sucks to be you, I guess.

Benjamin can’t make sense of things as they occur. It’s only when he’s just awoken in the blanket that he can put things together. He remembers being pulled out of the water and the men in the boat crowding him to stave off the cold. And Caleb talking endlessly. The man never liked the quiet, even when they were boys. He’d make up a game or create a story to make some sort of sound. Benjamin can remember having to hold Caleb’s knees in church so that the noise of his feet wouldn’t echo. The only time he ever knew Caleb to be silent and still was in the nights when he truly slept. Before they worried about Yale and work and parents, Caleb would sleep like the dead.  
Ben used to lay opposite him in the apple orchards, when the summer heat brought mid afternoon naps. The fruit made the air sweet, and bees passed by to land on knees and outstretched arms. Caleb could stretch out in the sunlight and sleep through the noise of the market in the distance. Ben stuck to the shade, scurrying around the tree as the afternoon wore on. A couple times, he’d considered reaching out and touching Caleb. He didn’t understand at the time, and though that perhaps he was just jealous or upset with Caleb and wanted proof they were alike. It was later when he wanted to do more than settle a hand on a shoulder that Ben resented Caleb’s deep slumber.  
Now those instances were few and far between. Caleb was fidgety and uneasy even when in rebel territory. Ben could hear him some nights, and was awoken more than once by the sound of Caleb wandering around camp.  
It’s doubtful Caleb slept at all during the night. There was a rabbit at some point, the image distorted through the heat of the fire, Caleb’s voice carrying on. And another moment, later in the night. Caleb had redressed him; the clothes dry from the fire. The long coat was wrapped around Benjamin, and the two blankets were spread over both of them. The fire was to his back, the warmth tracing his spine and drying the last bits of his hair. Caleb was at his front. Benjamin’s shins bumped Caleb’s feet under the wool and a beard brushed his forehead. The cold was still strong and it was difficult to stay awake But Benjamin remembers most that he hadn’t been that close to Caleb since the summer.  
It was in this brief moment that Benjamin realized how much he missed Caleb. He’d give nearly anything for the Continental Army, but he still longed for the days when he was a fresh recruit and Caleb tagged along because he would never let Benjamin go head frits into a war on his own. The men didn’t pay either of them any attention and everyone doubled up in tents. Caleb didn’t even bother to sit on his own cot before he ripped the blanket out and crawled in behind Benjamin.  
But that was months ago, feeling like year. Benjamin rose in the ranks and suddenly people were speaking to him and some nights he had his own tent that people walked in an out of. Caleb couldn’t have cared less and proceeded as if things hadn’t changed. But Benjamin began pushing him away, afraid of the consequences should they be caught. It was selfish of him, but his first fear was for himself. Caleb didn’t care what anyone thought, but Benjamin had spent his entire life trying to be a Good Man. So when Caleb hit him hard enough for an eye to swell shut and disappeared for two day, Benjamin made arrangements for Caleb’s sleeping quarters. He directed him to the tent upon his return and that was that.  
But with his nose buried in Caleb’s vest, it was difficult to place why he had distanced himself in the first place. That night, Caleb as just trying to keep him warm. Benjamin wasn’t built for the winter. He grew tall and lanky, whereas Caleb developed the breadth to stay warm in the winds off the water.  
Benjamin was awake long enough to burrow his nose against Caleb’s neck, ignoring that it was probably similar to pressing ice down one’s collar. But Caleb wrapped an arm tighter and hooked a leg over Ben’s thighs. The moment was brief and didn’t make enough sense. He missed Caleb in every aspect of his life. They were nearly always together, but Caleb didn’t look at hi the same or reach around him and settle his hands in Benjamin’s pockets. There were some days that Benjamin wondered if Caleb only stayed out of some sense of obligation to the army.  
In the morning, he could see the embers of the fire, having turned over again. Caleb was gone, the coat replaced with the second blanket. Benjamin feels the month of loss rot in his innards as a cough climbs up his throat. He tries to work out the hours he was asleep while Caleb talks. It’s a steady recounting of information until Benjamin sits up and reaches out for him.  
Caleb looks like a wounded animal. His eyes get unfeasibly bigger and his hands push deep into their pockets. “Don’t do that. It just…it hurts to consider things.”  
“What things?”  
“Everything.”  
Benjamin remembers long afternoons when Caleb would plan out how the two of them could live in the woods by themselves. No town or neighbors pushing their noses into everyone’s business. Sometimes he would just hold Ben while he read or scribbled reports, content to just not be separated. But Caleb no longer takes precedence. He can’t compete for Benjamin’s affections against an entire army and a country. He believes in the cause with everything he has, but Caleb is what he is.  
It is unimaginably cruel of him, but he wanted to return to early days right then, and leave it behind again when they return to the troops. Caleb will never say yes, but he asks anyway. He stays still, arm out, until Caleb turns away and retches.


	2. Caleb

The river is one tough old lady, and she'll kill anyone who trifles with her. That includes Tallboys who jump into her water in the middle of winter. Caleb's furiously trying to undo the buttons on Ben's waistcoat with numb fingers. Once the last button is undone he pulls it off with the shirt, leaning Ben against his side while he untangles the sleeves from his arms.

Immediately, Caleb wraps Ben's shoulders in a blanket and pulls at the ties of his breeches. The last of the clothing slides off with a cracking of ice, leaving Caleb to swaddle him in the blankets. The men struggle to light a fire with the damp wood. The sun hasn't been up long enough to warm the air and Ben still hasn't woken.

This can't happen. Ben is the one who's to survive. He can keep going after the war. Settle down, become some important person, live until he's a white haired and crooked old man on a front porch. Caleb isn't made for life after this. He's too wild and brash. His mother told him it was a Brewster trait, and if he'd had a sister she would've scandalized the entire town. But mostly he couldn't handle the two options he'd be presented with in peacetime: never see Ben again, or watch him marry a girl and raise a family. If he just isn't around, then neither will happen. He just isn't sure if he could finish the job should the Loyalists fail.

One the fire's going and a few men have cut some timber, the platoon follows the rest of Washington's men on to Trenton. Caleb covers Ben with his coat while he builds some shelter on the other side of the fire. the work settle the shaking in this hands, but the noise doesn't rouse Ben.

Once under the shelter and turned towards the fire, some of Ben's color seems to reappear. he'd always been pale, his skin refusing to brown in the sun. Caleb was half convinced that it was just another way Ben was being suborn. the man decided on something and he stuck with it. Caleb found it annoying more often than not, doing his best to break Ben out of his stiff rules. Even as children, he'd pulled Ben along when he was feeling mischievous, determined to prove that a little fun wouldn't hurt. Ben brought him to the church, when Reverend Tallmadge was stern and always looked like he was frowning. Caleb knew the Reverend thought him a bad influence. But he was all of fifteen when he realized how far gone he was. Ben had been away, preparing to attend Yale in the coming years. Caleb wandered around town, missing the chance to drag Ben out of his book and into the sun. Abe and Anna tried to spend time with him, but they were already lost in each other. Caleb's brothers were absent for weeks at a time, off getting into their own trouble.

So when Ben finally came back, Caleb wanted to hid him away somewhere and fill in those empty spaces with Ben's smile and nervous fidgeting. But once off the wagon, Ben was another three inches taller and the last of his childish features were disappearing. His father pulled him away, leaving Caleb with the horse an a worry that this new Ben had outgrown him.

It was a worry he carried with him for year. And when Ben finally left for Yale, Caleb hung onto the sides of his face, trying to accept the inevitable farewell. Ben left for three years, sending letters every few months, reading as if they could belong to anyone.

When he did return, things were different Caleb listened to the stories of the people in New Hartford, the places and things to do. For two months he watch Ben treat him as if he were Abe or Anna. It was hard to reconcile with the the nights he climbed in through a window of Ben's house or that he knew the shape of Ben's hips under his hands.

He spent the rest of that autumn and the winter in the woods, scratching at the mess of hair along his scalp and jaw. Ben was a pain hooked on the bottom of his ribs, of missing and hating all at once. The hurt turned callouses on his palms as he climbed around the trees and undergrowth, learning to survive on his own.

When he emerged muddle and exhausted in May, his mother dragged him back to her house and started combing through his hair. "That boy doesn't deserve your love," she said between clips of the scissors. "He only ever asked after you once. One day, he's going to rip you apart from the inside out."

Her words meant nothing the next day, when Ben wrapped his finger around the curve of Caleb's shoulders and stared at him with what passed as worry. Caleb had been hesitant to go from there, afraid Ben would find a reason to leave for good and put things right back where they were. It was right around the fall harvest of 1775 that he really let himself believe things were working. Ben had been talking about things he heard, but he promised that if he deflected, Caleb would be just as welcome in the Continental Army. Caleb slept through the nights in Ben's bed and taught him how to fish in the afternoons. Ben curled into Caleb's body during the harsh winter, leaving a brand mark down his sternum.

Leaving that summer didn't require any though. Ben knew what he wanted to do. Caleb followed, watching Ben grow into a solder and then molding along his spine in their tent.

It didn't last. Of course it didn't. Ben had a uniform and people taking orders from him. He wouldn't let Caleb into his cot. His mother's words stung, and Caleb hit Ben. He took to the woods again, but they didn't take. Caleb would harden and destroy himself as much as he could, but Ben would still be there. All that was left was to return and finish out the war. He pushed down every part of himself, until there was nothing left but teasing jokes and the promise of a ball of lead through his skull in the end.

Ben accepted this well enough. He thrived as an officer. Caleb's absence made no difference to him. The two of them might as well have met int the camp. Except now Caleb's the only thing between Ben and freezing to death.

"I really fucking hate you." The ice cracks behind them. "You just treat me like shit and I let you because you're you."

He keeps talking, an endless sentence to fill in space and keep him from going too far into the past. Night comes quickly, even for winter. Caleb's hands are exhausted form the mindless work he's been doing. Ben made a few movement since he woke up, but nothing that seemed like he was in control. But that he's made it this far is a good sign. Caleb remembers stories of people becoming confused and stripping before crawling off someplace to die. Ben's slept thought the entire day, even when Caleb pulled him up to dress him.

Ben never had any scars. He'd gotten his fair share of cuts and scrapes as a child, but they'd all healed flawlessly. That bullet left it's mark, though. Caleb hadn't seen the wound until now. Ben refused to be in any state of undress before him, as if he was a problem.

He walks around to Ben's side of the fire and peels the shirts and blankets away from the shoulder. The mark is small, just a pink dent in the skin. But it is the only mark on Ben's body. Caleb had spent enough time searching to know Ben didn't have so much as a freckle. Now he'd wear the war for the rest of his life. Caleb would never come before Ben's sense of duty.

He lays down next to Ben, a safe distance away. He needs some rest if he's going to be up all day tomorrow. But he changes his mind, wrapping Ben in his coat before settling down close enough that he keep the cold at bay and can look over the top of Ben's head.

A few hours pass like this. At every noise he opens his eyes and waits. But the only movement in from Ben. His nose presses into Caleb, who, against his better judgement, hooks him closer.

Caleb is pointlessly in love. Ben will never leave the life his success brings for a house in the woods. There is no middle ground between what Caleb wants and what will happen. The sits sour in the back of the his throat into the late morning, when Ben makes his appearance into full consciousness. The joy is dampened when he recognizes the look in Ben's eyes. The suspicion in confirmed when an arm reaches through the folds of the blanket.

He doesn't understand why he of all the people on this earth is treated the worst by Ben. With all others, there is a boundary that's not be crossed. When it comes to Caleb, Ben will maim him without a second thought.

For a brief moment, he does let himself think. About what could happen, and what would inevitably follow. The want for an impossible future gags him and he empties his stomach. Ben doesn't say anything. They both know its selfish, but Ben will never say he's sorry.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Still weird.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm still not sure it was a good idea to post this. It's kind of in between the creepiness of shipping real people and the harmlessness of shipping fictional characters. I feel like I should apologize to someone.


End file.
